The Immaculate Exchange: Uniswap

Decentralized networks thrive upon communities. Communities thrive upon shared narratives.

In three years, Uniswap has grown from a basic proof-of-concept funded by an Ethereum Foundation grant and built by an inexperienced Ethereum developer, to a multi-billion dollar decentralized exchange.

It facilitates hundreds of millions of dollars in volume a day and is now one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world. It has paid out more than $60 million to its 40,000+ unique liquidity providers who’ve contributed $2 billion in capital to build out liquidity for its exchange.

Perhaps most importantly, Uniswap has handsomely and unexpectedly rewarded all its early community members to the tune of $600 million (at current prices) for their crucial role in helping build out Uniswap.

In other words, Uniswap has all the key ingredients of a compelling narrative for a community to coalesce around. People got rich from Uniswap not because they were necessarily expecting to, rather because they genuinely took an interest in the protocol early on before it was clear how valuable it could become. The result is a fervent community of stakeholders who all feel motivated to see the project succeed.

But why does any of this matter?